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coaching transition

Life Coaching – making meaning in times of transition

October 19, 2018

Light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning.     

Teresa Tsalaky

coach with me

I’m offering a limited number of life coaching opportunities now! Work on creativity and self-leadership to make your dreams and plans come true.

As a Certified Life Coach with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy and with Certification in Personality Type assessment, I can help you negotiate major transition times. Whatever the change that is happening or that you desire to manifest, we all need support through challenging times. And life coaching is such a valuable investment to support you in major change and transition goals.

I focus on creativity and self-leadership in my life coaching. The women I work with have often put their creative needs and goals aside for others. Or they are working in job roles that are more like a ‘shadow career’, as Steven Pressfield describes it in Turning Pro, rather than the real thing. If you feel like you need support to get back to what you truly desire to be and do in life, I’d love to work with you.

Here’s my story of what I learnt on my transition journey to self-leadership and my creative life goals. And more on how I can support you to make meaning in times of transition to your life desires via life coaching.

Negotiating major life transitions

Working with life coaches has been a key support helping me to make meaning all the way along my two year transition journey. Even with all the experience I had as a teacher and leader in the adult vocational education sector, I needed support. We all do, especially when trying to make major change. It’s all about our identity; that’s why it’s such hard and vulnerable work. We define ourselves via certain roles in life – mother, partner, teacher, employee, leader, writer, daughter, wife. When in major life transition, we often need to look at these defining roles, reshape them and embody them and new ones new ways.

life coaching

We can feel quite lost at times. In the two years of my transition journey, I have been through some major identity shifts. I worked for an organisation that was the centre of my life for over 30 years. But I knew I had to leave it and get back to my creative desires in life. Then the organisation deleted my job making me redundant anyway so it wasn’t a matter of choice. This was all very painful even if change was what I wanted.

My mother was diagnosed with incurable metastatic breast cancer just as I was embarking on my transition. I spent the majority of my time with my mum supporting her as she faced challenging health and end of life. That was beyond painful. A true journey of love, I learnt so much from my beautiful mother at this most tender of life stages.

Working with life coaches to support us

Through this time, I worked with a series of life coaches as I also became a coach and negotiated these challenges and this major shift in identity.

The first coach helped me with the first very raw part of the journey as I realised I had to make major change. We put steps in place for the broad brush of the transition – shifting to part-time work and making space for change.

A second life coach helped me as we both went on our journey of becoming a life coach. We supported each other on our life coaching and life journey and still do.

And another life coach helped me with making sure my writing was balanced with life coaching as I defined the parameters of my new life in challenging circumstances. There were many other valued life coaching supporters along the way in many shapes and forms.

life coaching

How can life coaching support you?

Life coaching can be an incredible support as we move through times of change and make a path to the goals in our heart. Especially those long-term goals we have held very close and perhaps put aside.

It’s true that light precedes transition. It might be the light of our ideas, the creative future, the vision of what we want our life to look like. We have a sense of that new beginning to guide us but sometimes we need support as we shape it into reality. A life coach can act as that guiding hand to support us as we bring the light into play in a more grounded way.

Life coaching and the support and community of coaches is simply part of how I make meaning in life now. It’s especially powerful at times of major transition like experiencing redundancy, not wanting to stay where you are, wanting to start a new business around your passions or seeking more creative life options. It is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength to seek support and company as we reshape our identity and structure more self-leadership into our lives.

What is life coaching?

Life coaching provides a goal oriented framework to help you achieve what you want in life. It draws from a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, personal development and social development. Life coaching helps you move from where you are to where you want to be through supported and guided goal-setting and action. Importantly, it’s not the same as therapy or counselling; it’s more future focused and action focused.

People who choose to work with life coaches come from a range of backgrounds and work on goals as diverse as:

  • making a positive career transition to a more fulfilling job or way of working
  • driving creative projects such as writing a book or starting a blog
  • becoming healthier, fitter and stronger
  • having positive and meaningful relationships
  • improving self-confidence and self-belief
  • creating energising and nourishing self-care routines
  • living an inspired and balanced life.

Life coaching can take place in person or via technology such as over the phone or via Skype or Zoom. It can take place with individuals, in groups or in workplaces.

What do I bring to coaching and where do I focus?

In the journey to become a life coach, you create a focus that reflects your uniqueness and the rich blend of what you have to offer. No two life coaches are the same!

I focus on creativity and self-leadership coaching and I bring to that: extensive experience in adult and vocational education; certification in personality type assessment; and a passion for creativity, writing and books that drives everything I do. Supporting women seeking meaning and identity through major life transitions such as I have experienced is a key priority.

With my background in leadership and creativity, I am interested in how coaching can be a form of self-leadership. Just as we can lead others and take the lead in situations, the most important form of orchestrating leadership is how we take ourselves forward and bring the pieces of our lives together. I believe everyone can shine in their own way. We just need to find the threads that pull our unique story together.

I’m keen to support you also on your journey to work on goals that bring more heart to what you do and want to do. My coaching and writing work at Quiet Writing will support you to bring the threads together to actively create your story and shine.

life coaching

So how about you?

So if any of these thoughts and experiences about creativity and career, about self-leadership and feeling more wholehearted, about doing the work, are resonating with you, I’d love to work with you.

I especially work with women who:

  • want to be more wholehearted about the work they do or the life they lead; by this I mean, feeling more whole – like all of your important and valued parts are in play and activated, not left at the door or buried somewhere;
  • are trying to find their unique voice and space in their career and creative world;
  • have skills and experience – a body of work – they wish to take as a foundation and recast into a new vision and path;
  • are keen to get moving on creative projects like writing a book, getting a blog or website out into the world with their unique voice or want to craft a new creative life or business; or
  • want to take the steps to create the life they want and to succeed and shine.

I’d love to have a chat with you if you’d like to feel more satisfied with your life and make more informed choices about how to be creative and make a living. Or if you’re keen on getting your creative projects moving and are trying to work out how to combine creativity and career more effectively. These are areas I care so much about and can support you in.

become a life coach

Life Coaching with me – consult + life coaching series 

Here are the Life Coaching options and offerings available to help you make meaning in times of transition.

A free initial consult

If you are considering a life coaching series or combination of options, the best place to start is a free 30-45 minute consultation chat on where you are and where you want to go. This helps to see if we are a good fit and to begin to identify key goals and possible actions.

You can go direct to this link to book a time for your free consult chat via Zoom video-conferencing. You will be asked to fill in a pre-consult questionnaire so I can learn more about you and your needs in advance of our conversation together.

Create Your Story Coaching Series 

With six-sessions over three months, this coaching series helps you identify where you want to be and how to get there. In very practical goal and action-oriented stages, we move one step at a time with wholehearted, grounded support. As always with life coaching, you let me know where you want to focus! It’s your story. I’m there to guide you to help you create your story – the one you desire so deeply.

The investment in your future for this life-changing series is $330AU(around $235US) per month for 3 months. This is payable in advance each month.

Life Coaching with me – other options + offerings

There are other life coaching options and offerings available too. These options don’t need the up-front coaching consult as we get straight into the program! Just contact me via terri@quietwriting.com in the first instance. After an email chat, we might find the free consult chat is a good place to start if you want to combine options or are not sure where to start.

Personality Stories Coaching Package 

Understand your personality and psychological type preferences as a tool for self-leadership! This package includes a personality type assessment, a Jung/Myers-Briggs personality based e-course which includes an introduction to work by Carl Jung, Isabel Myers-Briggs and Katherine Myers. You will also go through identifying your best-fit type through assessment of your type, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, knowing your preferred cognitive functions and less preferred functions.

As a life coach certified in Psychological Type assessment, I take you on a deep-dive journey that will change your self-understanding and potentially, your life. I know, because it radically changed mine! You can read more here on that journey.

The Personality Stories package includes:

  1. Personality assessment online: Complete the Majors Personality Type Inventory (Majors PTI™) online assessment. This helps you begin to identify your Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type.
  2. Self-paced online course on personality type: An online course (about 3 hours to complete) on Personality Type so you can understand type and your preferences.
  3. A copy of the book You’ve Got Personality by Mary McGuiness, sent to you wherever you are in the world.
  4. Coaching debrief to work through your results: A 90 minute 1:1 face to face coaching session via Zoom to debrief your results and learning from the ecourse. You receive your Majors Personality Type assessment report in this session. We check whether your assessment result is your best-fit Type through discussing your results and preferences. We work through any questions and set inspiring goals and actions to take this knowledge forward in your life.
  5. Quiet Writing summary: Once your best-fit personality type is identified via theh debrief, you receive a Quiet Writing summary of your type preferences. This includes key points about your personality preferences, further reading, tarot connections, tips for managing stress and how to shine your personal entrepreneurial style in your life. There are also journal prompts to work further with what the learning brings up for you.
  6. Email support for 2 weeks after to follow up on any questions and learnings.

The investment for this package is $350AU (around $250US) as a special ‘first release’ price. Let me know via email terri@quietwriting.com if you are interested in being included in the first limited enrolment.

I’m also preparing an exciting group coaching offering in Sydney that covers similar territory. Learning about personality type with others in a group setting can be so much fun. Email me to be the first to know of this program!

Pathfinding one-off Coaching Session

This package aims to help work your way through specific options such as study, courses, becoming a coach or blending your passions into a new business. If you are interested in coaching – either becoming a coach or exploring other specific options, then a pathfinding coaching session might work for you. This involves a brief pre-coaching questionnaire, a 90 minute chat via videoconference or teleconference to explore potential path options  where I can share my experiences with you, email access to me for 2 weeks after, book recommendations/links and customised resources to guide your path (as required). It is targeted to solve specific life path dilemmas.

Cost = $250AU (around $180US)

Certified Coach for Life Coaches in training

Just a reminder too for life coaches in training that as a Certified Life Coach with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy, I can help you with your own pathway towards certification as a life coach with the Academy. A six session coaching series with me can count towards your own certification pathway as well.

I can especially help you with:

  • writing + creativity – like getting your book draft done, working on blogging, developing a writing practice, having a more creatively inspired life;
  • enhanced self-leadership for a more wholehearted life – whatever that looks like for you;
  • personality type assessment combined with your coaching series to understand your personality strengths as a coach, entrepreneur and creative.

Praise and where to contact me:

If you’d life to read what others have said from working with me, you can read more about their experiences here.

You can read more about working with me here.

Please contact me:

In practical terms, I’m in Australia but you can be anywhere in the world. We would work via the technology based service Zoom for our sessions. You don’t need any special software or setup!

I would love to work with you now or into the future in Quiet Writing Coaching!

Please feel free to share with anyone who you think might benefit from this opportunity. Download this quote and image to put in front of you or save it to Pinterest!

life coaching

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on coaching, books, tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality type.

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes life coaching, writing, personality type and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Your body of work: the greatest gift of transition to a bright new life

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

Shining a quiet light: working the gifts of introversion

Become a Life Coach + live your change

20 practical ways of showing up and being brave and helpful

Creative practices in my tool-kit

coaching transition work life

Become a Life Coach + live your change

September 21, 2018

You must be the change you wish to be in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

become a life coach

I’m excited to share my journey to become a life coach with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy + opportunities if you also want to become a life coach!

As a certified life coach, affiliate and ambassador for the Beautiful You Coaching Academy, I am truly delighted to share my experiences with you.

My key message is to be the change you wish to be.

Truly live it! And a fabulous pathway to this is to embark on the personal development journey to become a life coach. In this way, you can support the growth of others, as you beautifully enhance your own.

becoming a life coach

My journey to become a coach

It’s hard to believe it’s more than two years since I started on the Beautiful You Coaching Academy Life Coaching course journey. I remember receiving my learning resources with the most gorgeous, handwritten welcome note from lead trainer and CEO, Julie Parker.

I identified becoming a life coach as a key part of my transition from 30-plus years as a teacher and leader in the adult vocational education sector.  For a long time, I’d yearned for more freedom and time for creativity, especially to write the books I desired to write.

I had already started to make a plan to leave and start a new life. But a particular incident at work one day was like a kick in the guts, accelerating my transition journey. A message delivered in a meeting left me stunned, staring at the blue sky outside, unable to participate any further. It left me reeling. In essence, it was saying that after all I had invested in the organisation, I was no longer valued. I cried all the way home and hardly slept for days. Unable to work the following week, I spent days recovering. In that time, I began to plan my new future.

The first thing I did the morning after the incident was reach out to my friend, Victoria, who was a life coach. Feeling very raw, I asked her to help me chart a course to create a new life. Soon after, I started coaching with Victoria, then began part-time job-share arrangements at work to make space for transition. Before too long, it became clear that a new life plan was not a choice, it was a necessity. Redundancy was imminent – the organisation was also headed in different directions and I truly was not valued.

Fast forward to now

Since that time, I completed the Beautiful You Life Coaching course and honed my life coaching skills through a series of deep engagements with clients. Building on my skills as a teacher and leader, I’m now a practising Certified Life Coach focused on creativity and self-leadership, especially for women in transition. Women who are undergoing experiences like I have been through. I am an accredited Personality Type assessor and practitioner, as well as a writer and intuitive tarot reader. These are all skills I chose to learn or deepen as I went on this journey – my passions and loves.

Life coaching is linked to writing and teaching as key aspects of my life. Writing is my creative focus and raison d’être, but teaching and supporting people to reach their potential is also what I have engaged in deeply through-out my work life. I’ve been a coach and mentor in the workplace and worked with coaches in the workplace as a leader. So when the time came to leave my job, my transition plan had writing and coaching as two core elements complementing each other.

Becoming a life coach became a key pillar of this plan for a new life. It’s a skill and personal journey you can integrate with many other life skills and passions as you seek to shape a new life and be of service to others.

Working with life coaches + life transition

I can’t say enough about the value of being a life coach and working with life coaches to support you on key transition journeys. Working with coaches has been a key support along this two-year transition journey, helping me to make meaning. My coach, Victoria, helped me start my journey at that very tender time when I knew I had to make plans to leave. As well, on the coaching journey with Beautiful You, every trainee has the opportunity to buddy coach with a fellow trainee. Below is a picture of me (on the left) with my gorgeous and inspiring coaching buddy, Jeanette. We shared powerful and supportive learning and coaching experiences as we mutually embarked on this adventure.

becoming a life coach
Photo credit Emma Louise Newby @emmalouisenewby

My coaching needs focused on strength and self-care as I was also supporting my mother who was very unwell with cancer. Sadly, she passed away at the end of last year after a very difficult time. I focused on making sure my self-care and wellness strategies were in place when life was tough. When I was caring for another just as I was making a major life transition.

Now, I am much healthier and stronger, swimming in the ocean a few times a week and back to yoga after a break. I also worked with a certified Beautiful You coach on my writing to make sure it was a priority on this journey. I went on a writing and yoga retreat in beautiful Hoi An, Vietnam.

After two years on this journey, working with a number of coaches, studying with Beautiful You, becoming a Personality Type practitioner and establishing both my coaching and writing practice, life looks very different. I’d like to help you make life look different too – so read on!

become a life coach

Why become a life coach?

Life coaching is an incredible support as we move through times of change and make a path to achieve our goals. Especially those long term goals we have held very close. Life coaching and the support and community of coaches is simply part of how I make meaning in life now.

It is especially powerful at times of major transition and creativity like: experiencing redundancy, not wanting to stay where you are, starting a business around your passions, writing a book or seeking more creative life options.

I struggled as I wrote this piece to separate out the journey to become a life coach from the fabulous support and experience that life coaching has afforded me. They are in essence all part of the same journey. It becomes a skill you learn but also a mindset you live. My learning to become a coach coincided with other deep life experiences that involved holding space for others at critical times. My skills as a life coach helped me navigate those times with self-leadership and strength.

Some of the reasons to become a life coach are that it is:

  • something you can do from anywhere, a flexible skill that is infinitely portable.
  • work that you can dial up and down, in combination with other life priorities and work streams.
  • a skill that integrates with other life passions: Life coaches work in all kinds of niches reflecting their uniqueness.
  • a rich and ongoing journey of personal development.
  • a way to connect with other like-minded people interested in self-development and deep connection.
  • focused on being in service, using your skills, knowledge and experience to support others.
  • a rich skill-set for all of life: mindfulness, listening, asking questions, holding space, supporting, encouraging and cheering others on.

Why Beautiful You Coaching Academy?

As a graduate, affiliate and ambassador for the Beautiful You Coaching Academy, I wholeheartedly recommend the Academy’s Life Coaching Course. The many positives of the program and experience include:

  • solid theory and practice, well-structured and professionally managed with the ability to study online from across the world;
  • exceptional leadership and teaching via CEO and lead trainer Julie Parker and her team, all skilled, successful and experienced life coaches;
  • a rich, diverse, supportive and welcoming community of coaches within the Beautiful You network;
  • the ability to learn how to build and grow your own coaching business you can operate from anywhere in the world and with a global reach;
  • an academy that supports and promotes the work of its coaches, providing opportunities to shine and extend;
  • the opportunity to pursue a certified coach pathway; and
  • making many new deep friendships and connections across the world via a common interest in personal growth.
become a life coach

Become a life coach with my support

So, I am so excited to be offering a number of coaching opportunities for you to become a coach as an affiliate of the Beautiful You Coaching Academy.

Firstly, if you know you would like to sign up for the first Beautiful You Coaching Course in 2020, don’t delay. It’s 80% full already and places fill quickly.

As an affiliate, I endorse the course and receive an affiliate payment for providing this recommendation. You have no additional costs in enrolling and there is an exciting benefit for you as well!

You can read further below about the opportunity to work with me also for a 6-session coaching series at no cost to you as well.

You can find out more about the course at the Beautiful You Coaching Academy website here.

Importantly, if you wish to access the 6-session coaching session with me at no cost to you, make sure when you complete the order form to enrol in the course, that you enter MY NAME – TERRI CONNELLAN – (first and last) in the CODE field of the order page. This will link you to me and my offer. So easy!

Important Note: If you enter my name in any other area than the one instructed, (which is the code field at your enrolment stage – please see graphic below), or not at all at the exact time of your enrolment, you will not be able to receive my affiliate offerings. This is not something that can be amended at a later time and so please be careful at your sign up stage to do this as I want to be able to support you on your coaching journey!

become a coach

Thanks to @annamarialocke for this image!

Create Your Deeper Story life coaching series

So more on my offer!

In choosing to become a life coach with Beautiful You, I would love to offer you the opportunity to work with me as your coach! This is via a ‘Create Your Deeper Story’ Coaching series of 6 sessions over a 3 month period on areas important to you and your life path. Just remember to email Beautiful You with my name BEFORE you enrol.

The value of this investment in your future for this life-changing series is $330AU per month, a total of $990AU over 3 months. But it will provided at no cost to you. You only need to make sure you enter my name at the CODE field in the Course Order/enrolment form (as above) and remain in study to the end of the refund period.

The ‘Create Your Deeper Story’ Coaching series helps you identify where you want to be and how to get there in very practical goal and action-oriented steps. One step at a time with wholehearted, grounded support and practicality.  I focus on creativity and self-leadership coaching but you let me know exactly where you want to focus! It’s your story. Skilled in personality type assessment, I weave personality type knowledge deep into my coaching and offer special deep-dives into this area as a separate opportunity.

As a Certified Life Coach with Beautiful You, I can help you with your own pathway towards certification as a life coach with the Academy. A six-session coaching series with me can count towards your own certification pathway as well.

Where to contact me:

So I hope you are excited by what all of this means for you!

To become a Life Coach, you can enrol straight away via the Beautiful You Coaching Academy Course Page (make sure you include my name on the form as above!) or you can contact me if you have any questions:

I would love to support you to become a life coach and to work with you!

Please feel free to share with anyone who you think might benefit from this opportunity.

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on coaching, books, tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality type.

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes life coaching, writing, personality type and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Life Coaching – making meaning in times of transition

How I fulfilled my vision to become a Personality Type Coach

Your body of work: the greatest gift of transition to a bright new life

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

Shining a quiet light: working the gifts of introversion

20 practical ways of showing up and being brave and helpful

Creative practices in my tool-kit

inspiration & influence reading notes

Reading as Creative Influence – 36 Books that Shaped my Story

September 1, 2017
36 books

My free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story: Reading as Creative Influence’ celebrates the books we love as our creative legacy and the clues they give as to what is emerging in our story.

The story of ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

I’m excited to be sharing the story of the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ with you!

This was my first free resource I created here in 2017. But it’s so powerful, I’m sharing it again now in case you missed it. When working out the special free ebook gift to share, I wanted something that summed up the heart of Quiet Writing. I wanted to create something that sparked creativity, shared generously and provided a springboard for reflections.

And I kept coming back to books. Sharing books that made a difference to me, how they influenced me and shaped my life. Because I learnt that reflecting on this can be a source of growth.

Words are at the heart of Quiet Writing – the words we read, the words we write, the words we say to ourselves or another person such as a trusted friend or coach as we form our vision and process our journey. The words we listen to as we read, as we engage with another fully and the words we want to write.

And story is the shape the words make – the narrative we weave through the body of work that we create through career, our creative endeavours and our passions. This story is unique – no one has read the same books as you in the same way; no one has the same life experiences as you; and you are the only one to combine your passions and experiences in the way that you do.

Gathering special books around us

I’ve always gathered special books around me as a sort of altar, a source of strength, a connection to influence. They are like a wise chorus of silent voices surrounding me. So when I read Sage Cohen’s essay, ‘Honor your lineage’ in her book, Fierce on the Page, it rang special bells of resonance. Sage explains:

I have always been magnetically drawn to the books I need as teachers. Recently I cleared a shelf and, with great reverence, placed on it the books I most love – the ones that have shaped me in the way that water shapes stones, almost imperceptibly over time.

She invites us to gather the books we most love around us and to sit with them and appreciate how they have influenced our vision and sense of direction, especially in our writing life.

And importantly, she flags that in the light and strength of these books and words, the heart of what we want to write is lingering:

I wonder if that’s really all our writing asks of us: to know what we love, to listen, and to give ourselves over to what presents itself.

What I did to shape 36 Books

So that’s what I did – I gathered the special books that have shaped me over time. I spent time with each of them, honouring what they have brought to me. And it became a fascinating and deep exercise. Choosing them, remembering what they have given me, unpacking and unravelling it a little more. I organised it into a continuum, seeing how it fitted in the context of my life – an insightful joy. And I learnt so much about myself and the recurring themes in my life.

It became a deep excavation and navigation of what I love and how it drives me.

And that is the heart of Quiet Writing – it’s about gathering the threads of our lives, finding the connecting pieces and weaving them together.

I communicate this heart and this spirit, through writing and coaching, the twin hearts of Quiet Writing, so we can work with it in a supportive way to shine. For when we find those connecting pieces, those values, those desires, those long held passions and values, they can help us negotiate the next phase more successfully and work out what we really want to do and feel.

free ebook

What to expect in ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

So what can you expect in ‘36 Books that Shaped my Story: Reading as Creative Influence‘? It’s a 94 page pdf. It starts with a personal essay about the rationale and process drawing the threads of the experiment and experience together into key themes.

The second part then tracks through each of the 36 books individually and shows how they appeared in the context of my life and the legacy and influence they have provided. There are also suggestions as to why you might want to read each book.

Taken overall, the book shows how the books you love can be a:

  • source of writing inspiration
  • timeline for reflection
  • prompt for memoir
  • way of gathering evidence about your body of work over time
  • guide for understanding what you really love
  • pathway for noticing the key themes of your life
  • key to the influences that are your guiding light and
  • a narrative for your life.

I think you will find it a valuable read about the value of books and reading as creative influence and as a way of finding clues to help you enrich your quiet writing life.

How to get your copy of ’36 Books’

Just pop your details in the form below to receive your copy of ’36 Books’!

It’s 94 pages of deep-dive reading on books and the insight and clues they can provide us for living a wholehearted life.

If you are a book lover, this is for you!

You will also receive my regular ‘Beach Notes’ newsletter. It’s full of inspiration about books, writing, story, narrative, voice, personality and all things quiet writing. I send it out 1-2 times a month. You’ll also get early advice about Quiet Writing coaching, writing and learning opportunities.

I hope you enjoy ‘36 Books’. It’s an opportunity for us to reflect on our thoughts on reading, books, creativity, influence, story, narrative and writing. These are all fabulous inspirations central to Quiet Writing and the community here.

I can’t wait to hear your feedback – happy reading and reflection!

Read more!

You can read more about creative influence in this post:

How to know and honour your special creative influences

You might also enjoy:

How to read for more creativity, pleasure and productivity

Being ‘Fierce on the Page’ – a book review

On the art and love of reading

How to craft a successful life on your own terms

coaching intuition personality and story

Personality, story and Introverted Intuition

June 19, 2017

Knowing your personality type is a way to explore your deeper story. Here’s a brief overview of personality and Introverted Intuition as a starting point.

personality

As an INTJ Jung/Myers-Briggs type, Introverted Intuition is my dominant function and preference. I wrote about this function recently on a guest post on Life Reaction.

It’s certainly a mysterious one though and it’s taken me time to really trust and learn from it. Becoming certified in personality type assessment via the Majors Personality Type InventoryTM  based on Jung/Myers-Briggs theory has enabled me to dive more deeply into the way it works. 

This training has helped me to understand that personality is a story, a life story, that can help us to weave and find our way in the world. It provides a framework that helps us understand our dominant preferences or gifts, why we love what we love and how we can work these gifts to shine brighter.

As well, it can provide an insight into the less developed aspects of our personality that we might illuminate to feel more whole. It can also help us to understand individual differences in orientations and why other people such as our partners and work colleagues may operate so differently to us in some ways. 

The landscape of personality

So where does ‘Introverted Intuition’ fit into the landscape of personality?

It’s a deep and complex topic but here’s a brief overview. I look forward to continuing to explore these areas of personality in future posts here and elsewhere including in my coaching interactions.

For context, The Myers and Briggs Foundation provides the following key advice:

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives.  The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

Carl Jung’s theory of personality identified eight functions – four are Perceiving functions and four are Judging functions. The functions are used differently depending on whether they are expressed in the internal world or the external world.

The summary overview below is based on Mary McGuiness’s excellent book ’You’ve Got Personality’ including her keywords for the functions.

The four Perceiving functions are:

Extraverted Sensing – abbreviated as Se – Sensory Experience

Introverted Sensing – Si – Sensory Memory

Extraverted Intuition – Ne – Exploring possibilities

Introverted Intuition – Ni – Visionary insight

The four Judging functions are:

Extraverted Thinking – Te – Logical outcomes

Introverted Thinking – Ti – Internal analysis

Extraverted Feeling – Fe – Harmonizing people

Introverted Feeling – Fi – Universal values

Further work by Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs based on Jung’s work added the fourth dimension into the picture – Judging and Perceiving. From this work, the four pairs of preferences were developed that form the basis of the 16 x four letter MBTI® type references we know today:

Extraversion vs Introversion (E/I)

Sensing vs Intuition (S/N)

Thinking vs Feeling (T/F)

Judging vs Perceiving (J/P)

Each type has a Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior function and these are dynamic frameworks within which our personality plays out and which we can use as points of orientation.

For my type, INTJ (Introverted, Intuition, Thinking, Judging), for example, Intuition is introverted and Thinking is extraverted. As I and other people of my type prefer introversion (I), Intuition is the Dominant function and Thinking is the Auxiliary function. INTJ types typically use Intuition to make sense of the world from an inner, reflective and symbolic perspective and use Thinking (logic) in the outer world to organise, frame and structure things.

In terms of the eight Jungian functions, people are able to develop all but some are more instinctive for each type than others. Understanding your type and your preferred functions helps you make sense of the way you perceive and organise the world, internally and externally.

You can read more personality basics here.

Personality types and functions

So what does all this mean for understanding Introverted Intuition and whether it applies to you?

As I say in the Life Reaction article:

If you identify as an INTJ or INFJ (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®) personality type, Introverted Intuition is typically your dominant function; if you identify as an ENTJ or ENFJ, it’s your auxiliary function; for ISFP and ISTP types, it’s the tertiary function and for ESFP and ESTP types, it’s the inferior function. It plays out in a lesser way for other types. You can read more here. And if you don’t know your type, it’s not a huge issue; if the words ‘Introverted Intuition’ speak to you, chances are they are natural preferences for you or areas on your radar for development.

So if you don’t know about personality types or know your type, trust your intuition and if it feels like something you’d like to know more about, read the article!

If you do know your personality type and you’re not sure how the functions work in terms of your type, Angelina Bennet has a fabulous analogy in ‘Shadows of Type’. She describes them in terms of a car analogy: the dominant function is the driver of the car; the auxiliary function is the passenger in the front helping with navigation; the tertiary function is the teenager in the back; and the inferior function is like the baby in the car seat occasionally screaming for attention especially from the driver!

So Introverted Intuition, for example, could be playing out in all sort of ways in your personality and life even if it’s not the dominant piece, just as all functions in your particular type have the potential to do.

A deeper dive into your personality type with a coach or person with certification in the area can help you work through the rich detail. This helps you know how to apply this valuable knowledge in a practical way.

Personality, story and life coaching

I’m loving exploring personality and story in the context of life coaching. Working with pro bono clients now, it’s amazing how personality type weaves its way into the conversation implicitly or explicitly.

With my training and professional background, it’s something I can bring to life coaching quietly or overtly. I love the framework for personal growth it provides.

Understanding our personality is a key to gaining insight into our story and working with our gifts. It’s a way of knowing what we can develop to be more wholehearted, calling on our less developed preferences.

Knowing your personality type is a way to find your deeper story.  It’s a fascinating journey to go deeper into its threads and mysteries.

And as Isabel Briggs Myers has said:

It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences.

So personality is a story you write with the natural preferences you have been given.

I’m developing my personality offerings including identifying your type via the Majors Personality InventoryTM, and linking them with my Life Coaching offerings, so sign up to Quiet Writing via email to keep informed.

But for starters, head on over to Life Reaction and read about how Introverted Intuition has helped me pull the threads together and write my personality story.

Happy reading and welcome any questions and thoughts on personality, story and Introverted Intuition.

persona

Thought pieces

As well as my Life Reaction piece, you can read more about the fascinating world of Introverted Intuition here:

Introverted Intuition (Ni) – Dr A J Drenth (Personality Junkie)

The Magic and Mystery of Introverted Intuition – Susan Storm (Psychology Junkie)

Introverted Intuiting (Ni) Explained – Michael T Robinson (Career Planner)

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and whole-hearted self-leadership. This includes personality skills, Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type developments, coaching, creativity, writing and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. You will also receive my free 95-page ebook 36 Books that Shaped my Story – so sign up now to receive it!

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If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Personality skills including how you can be the best you can be as an introvert in recruitment

Introverted and Extraverted Intuition – how to make intuition a strong practice

Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

Overwhelm, intuition and thinking

Intuition, writing and work: eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

coaching creativity inspiration & influence

Pro Bono Life Coaching – an opportunity to shine!

May 18, 2017

At the centre of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

Lao Tzu

Beautiful You coaching

UPDATE at February 2018: Pro Bono Life Coaching opportunities are now fully subscribed – thanks to those who have expressed interest. But do still read ahead about the launch of Quiet Writing Coaching and my background! You can go to Work with me to find out about current opportunities!

I’m so excited today to be officially launching Quiet Writing Coaching with a limited number of pro bono life coaching opportunities for women!

It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly four months since I started the Beautiful You Coaching Academy Life Coaching course and received my learning resources with the most gorgeous, handwritten welcome note from our lead trainer and CEO of Beautiful You, Julie Parker.

Since that time, I’ve been studying and practicing coaching and I’m now ready to commence offering pro bono life coaching. This marks the official commencement of my coaching practice in the world – something I have been planning now for over a year. And I’m very excited!

In this post I will share my journey to this point, explain what life coaching is and what this pro bono coaching opportunity offers. I also want to share what I bring to coaching and who I see myself best supporting.

My journey to coaching

My decision to gain skills and experience in coaching is linked to writing. Writing and coaching are twin skills that I want to weave together to form a new path in my life. Writing is my creative focus and raison d’être, an area of my life where I would like to do so much more. But teaching and supporting people to reach their potential, especially creatively, has also been an area I have engaged in deeply through-out my working life.

I’ve worked with coaches in the workplace especially in partnership as a leader to help support the growth of my teams. I’ve been a mentor and I’ve been mentored in my work roles. When I decided I need to start making a transition to a new way of living and working last year, I reached out to a coach to support me at a critical time. And this has made all the difference in shaping this time. Thanks to my desire to change and thanks to my wonderful coach.

And as part of my coaching journey through Beautiful You, I’ve been working with a buddy coach where we have shared powerful learning and coaching experiences mutually as we embark on this adventure. It’s challenging times as a I work on this journey; my beautiful mum is very unwell and I am supporting her which is an emotional journey. I don’t write so much about this here as it’s private. But I’ve worked on my self-care and wellbeing as I move through this time so I can be strong and well especially for my mum but also for myself and others in my life. I am now so much healthier and stronger after this short time – swimming in the ocean a few times a week and back to yoga classes twice a week. Thanks to my commitment to change and thanks to my wonderful coach. Here is a picture of me on the left with my gorgeous and inspiring coach buddy, Jeanette.

BYCA Coach buddy pic

Photo credit to Emma Louise Newby @emmalouisenewby

What is life coaching?

So as you can see life coaching can be an incredible support as we move through times of change and make a path to those goals that are in our heart. Especially those long term goals we have held very close.

Life coaching provides a structured and goal oriented framework to help you achieve what you want in life. It draws from a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, personal development and social development. Life coaching helps you move from where you are to where you want to be through supported and guided goal-setting and action. Importantly, it’s not the same as therapy or counselling; it’s more future focused and action focused.

People who choose to work with life coaches come from a range of backgrounds and work on goals as diverse as:

  • making a positive career transition to a more fulfilling job or way of working
  • driving creative projects such as writing a book or starting a blog
  • becoming healthier, fitter and stronger
  • having positive and meaningful relationships
  • improving self-confidence and self-belief
  • creating energising and nourishing self-care routines
  • living an inspired and balanced life.

Life coaching can take place in person or via technology such as over the phone or via Skype or Zoom. It can take place with individuals, in groups or in workplaces.

What I bring to coaching and where I want to focus

I’m choosing to focus on career and creativity coaching and I bring to that: extensive experience in adult and vocational education; certification in MBTI/personality type assessment; and a passion for creativity, writing and books that drives everything I do.

You can learn more about me here.

With my experience in leadership and creativity, I am interested in how coaching can be a form of self-leadership. Just as we can lead others and take the lead in situations, the most important form of orchestrating leadership is how we take ourselves forward and bring the pieces of our lives together.

My introvert qualities help me work from writing as a strength and I believe everyone can shine in their own way. We just need to find the threads that pull our unique story together. That’s what I am keen to do with my coaching and writing work at Quiet Writing – to support people to find the threads of their story and shine.

And I’ve done the work. I’m finding the threads of my story and weaving them together too:

  • I’ve sat in cafes and on trains before work, writing and studying poetry, to tap into that source and learn more.
  • I’ve walked into work and felt like I’m leaving large parts of myself behind, the most important parts, and felt so sad about it. So I’m taking that feeling forward to plan a different future.
  • I’ve woven creativity into my day job as much as I could, especially as a leader of innovative practice. I’ve learnt from this but there’s still so much more I want to be doing.
  • I’ve listened to so many podcasts and read so many books! That will always be the way as I love learning. But it’s time for me to take these influences forward into my unique brand of coaching and writing work and live the life I want.

I’ve studied and worked and read and I’m keen to bring all these pieces together and find the gold threads and from there to make a new creatively based lifestyle.

It’s time for me to be more whole-hearted and coaching and writing are the keys to that. So I’m working through it all and I’m on the journey. And I’m keen to support you also on your journey to work on goals that bring more heart to what you do and what you want to do.

So how about you?

So if any of these thoughts and experiences about creativity and career, about self-leadership and feeling more whole-hearted, about doing the work, are resonating with you, I’d love to work with you.

I feel especially called to work with women who:

  • want to be more whole-hearted about the work they do; by this I mean, feeling more whole – like all of your important and valued parts are in play and activated, not left at the door or buried somewhere;
  • are trying to find their unique voice and space in their career and creative world;
  • have skills and experience they wish to take as a foundation and recast into a new vision and path;
  • want to take the steps to create the life they want and to shine.

I’d love to have a chat with you if you’d like to feel more satisfied with your life and make more informed choices about how to be creative and make a living. Or if you’re keen on getting your creative projects moving and are trying to work out how to combine creativity and career more effectively. These are areas I care so much about and can support you in.

shine

My pro bono life coaching offering

So, I am so excited to be offering my first pro bono life coaching opportunities right now to a small number of women as I step into my future as a coach and a writer.

As a coach in training, my plan is to start with a number of limited pro bono opportunities now and focus on them for the next few months.

What I am offering now is:

  • the opportunity to work with me as your coach for a coaching series of 6 sessions over a 3 month period on areas that are important to you and your life path;
  • a 30 minute consultation upfront to start the process to ensure we are a positive fit and to identify areas of possible focus to ensure maximum value from our sessions. You will be asked to fill out a short questionnaire prior to this first discussion.

In return, and in lieu of any monetary exchange for this pro bono coaching series offering, you need to provide:

  • a (glowing) testimonial with a photo within one week of your coaching series finishing and
  • a shout out where you can about the great experience you have had with me as your coach.

Once we have the 30 minute consultation, we will identify the dates and schedule for our sessions so we can make them a priority once an hour each fortnight.

In practical terms, I’m in Australia but you can be anywhere in the world. We would work via technology based services like Skype for our sessions.

As you can see, it’s all about my learning, the benefit to you of a fabulous and productive coaching series with me and the opportunity for me to launch my coaching work as positively as I can, building on my current experience and yours. A super win-win!

Where to contact me:

So I hope you are excited by what this might mean for you!

If you are interested in being considered for this coaching opportunity, noting that they are small in number and only available for a limited time, please contact me:

  • via email: terri@quietwriting.com
  • or via direct message on social media – via Facebook or Instagram if we are already connected

I would love to work with you now or into the future in Quiet Writing Coaching!

Please feel free to share with anyone who you think might benefit from this opportunity.

Thought pieces

I usually finish my blog posts with thought pieces – related thoughts, symbols, references – being an intuitive with an associative mind, connections pop up and I like to include them here.

For today, it’s a tarot card – the beautiful Three of Earth – also known as the Three of Pentacles (Coins) from the recently released ‘The Good Tarot’ by Colette Baron-Reid.

I start my day with a tarot and oracle reading for guidance and sometimes I hesitate to do that first and feel I should get on with my work. Then I get the most helpful insights and the reminder from the cards that this is my work. The intuitive wisdom feeds deeply into my day and visions and what I can then share with others to inspire them.

Today’s question was about coaching, this pro bono coaching offer and how it fits with my vision and with yours.

So here is the beautiful Three of Earth:

Three of earth

How gorgeous are her butterfly glasses – transformative and seeing far into the future, grounded in the here and now, but lifting her gaze. Here are Colette Baron-Reid’s words on this card:

Teamwork, building on solid foundations, group efforts, dedicated collaboration

What I am building is grounded in a solid foundation, so I know I can trust it will not slip away suddenly. I am joined by others in coordinated efforts to bring forth what we have chosen to co-create. The architecture of my dreams is becoming tangible, taking shape before me, and I share my joy and pride with my partners and supporters. Teachers and students, we are all learning, growing, and building collaboratively.

It really is all about co-creation. My future and yours. Thank you for your support – it’s such a pleasure to learn, grow and build collaboratively with you. Let’s put on our butterfly glasses together and see our vision and shine!

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Liketo keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on coaching, books, tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes tarot, MBTI developments, life coaching and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Shining a quiet light: working the gifts of introversion

Intuition, writing and work: eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

Healing with words of gold: The Empress, Kintsugi and alchemy

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

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